Thursday, July 29, 2010

All this time we have been trying to avoid mentioning the upcoming Clinton-Mezvinsky wedding, which will likely take place in a Rhinebeck, NY mansion. The traditional media has been providing saturation coverage, but when NBC News mentioned that even the porta-potties would have porcelain commodes, hot running water, and stereo music ($15,000 to rent them for a day), it confirmed the widely-held belief that no expense was being spared to make this an extra special occasion.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I had the pleasure of meeting the late Doyle Roberts once, but we clicked immediately, so it gives me great pleasure to post this prescient speech on the blog. It describes the tendency of bureaucrats to create complex organizations [or lack thereof], promote mediocrity, and avoid accountability, because that is what they do. Reading it gives you an insight as to why the state of California is on the verge of bankruptcy.

On the Occasion of My Retirementby Doyle L. Roberts (delivered in Westminster, CA on March 5, 1981)

The Youth Authority has had over 25 years to make up its mind about Doyle Roberts. So what I say in a single speech is unlikely to change anybody’s mind.

I am retiring early rather than continue to implement policies I consider ethically repugnant. The Youth Authority is more than a big P.T.A. social, it is a necessary public agency. It is California’s best tool for fighting delinquency. I worked for and merited my job. So…

I don’t have to knuckle under. I can pick up my retirement pay and hang a “go-to-hell” sign on my door. I will no longer assist the “team” in turning the Youth Authority into political garbage.

Every year since 1975, when I took the CEA assignment, I have had to close my eyes and compromise my conscience on the way to the bank. The psychological blows have been numerous. It is like being nibbled to death by ducks.

In hindsight, it would have been better to shut my mouth. I criticized Sacramento and the bizarre policies often and in writing. That was not the wisest procedure. I put my CEA job on the line. I knew what could happen. I believe that management has the right to select and reject subordinates – hell, that was a primary principle. But they demote efficient and promote defective employees. My ethical breaking point was not the director’s loss of confidence. The plain facts are that I had little confidence in the invincible woman as director and no confidence in the executive team: the leg hangers and the wonder wimps.

My heroes have always been cowboys. My models were Heman [Herman?] Star, R.G. Harvey, Lyle Egan and Vic Kirk. Administrators who spoke with a straight tongue, who did what they had to do, took action and were responsible for their decisions. Power does not come in a can to be picked up and passed around. Authority must be earned. Managers of principle do not kowtow to politics but speak out on public issues. The Youth Authority must not be allowed to shift priorities and resources away from its public protective role.

When I transferred to the clinic I got to know another side of YA. The kind of people that make a dangerously overcrowded and under budgeted institution function safely for staff and wards. In the history of corrections SRCC shines like a “good deed in a naughty world.” I am proud to have been part of that work.

Three things must be kept in mind to understand my leaving.

One factor is that the Y.A. of today is very complex. The old Y.A. had three divisions, the new Y.A. is a hydra-headed department with a duplication of service and a multiplication of irresponsible decision-makers. I do not know who is running the Youth Authority. I do know that the Director is not. I was forbidden, in writing, to talk business with her. But is the Chief Deputy in charge or is one of the others? The Y.A. has not issued an organizational chart since 1975. There are so many chiefs at such high levels the traditional pyramid would be inverted on a chart. With all the “bookkeepers” in charge the “Executive Team” knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. The symbol is no longer a torch but a green eyeshade.

A second factor is the lack of communication. There are many levels of command but there is not a clear voice from the top. Just a vast horde of superordinates generating enormous amounts of paper to justify their level of classification. People who need continual interchange to do their job are separated by branch organization and people who need to talk cannot and those who should not, do. The politically responsible people are isolated from the realities of the department. Sacramento head office is incapable of the level of leadership necessary to revitalize the system.

The third point is the myth. The public and the Legislature no longer view the Y.A. as important. Our image is so loose and vague that what we are supposed to be doing has become lost. For example: while Los Angeles is working to put police supervisors out of the office and into the streets, the Y.A. is forcing their parole forces out of the streets by taking away their transportation. Doesn’t Sacramento know that young offenders do not volunteer? The delinquent does not come into the office asking for treatment. If you are going to fight street crime you have to go out and do your thing “eyeball to eyeball” in the criminal’s natural habitat.

I consider myself an expert on the Youth Authority. I believe that my service gives me a perspective for valid criticism. I refuse to be a “closet” protestor. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the heart of the issue. Stay and be nibbled to death or walk away with human dignity. I have never feasted on toad, either in Upland or Sacramento. I am not dead, I feel fine. I have to retire because I no longer have hope that the department can reform itself. Let me recite a poem I scribbled for the occasion:

Oh where are the shouters and gripers? They are vanished before they grow old The silent ones now are your leaders And the reason is – Silence is Gold.

The Youth Authority is too valuable a social tool to be left to third-rate hacks.

I am sure that the administration will try to muddy the waters. Already plausible rumors are moving. The smallest of small potatoes will be unearthed to discredit my actions. SRCC has been overpopulated. The SRCC employees work excessive overtime. Wards’ rights and volunteer programs are not “free.” Permit me to relate an experience from the year last past. A Task Force swooped down on the clinic looking for something wrong. The resulting report was so hokey that you did not know whether to laugh yourself into hysteria, or attempt to track down the lout who wrote it and flog him with old copies of clinic studies. We pointed out that all the so-called “discrepancies” were the exclusive responsibilities of the SRCC “mole” and I would be pleased to take assertive action. Not surprisingly, the report was deep-sixed.

I resigned in protest but am taking my peace officer retirement (I earned it) by leaving. I may put an additional burden on you but the battle is not over. I have recommended a new director and a new organization to restore public confidence. I was going to say to turn the organization around, but it’s been turned around so often I forget which direction it’s headed. I will do everything I can publicly and politically to see that you get the support you need and that those responsible for bad management are held accountable.

Well, since I didn’t ask anybody’s permission to retire early, I can now follow my own advice. Forgive me.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Bloomberg.com relates the sad tale of Cindy Lohman of Great Mills, MD, who lost her son, a 24-year-old Army sergeant, in Afghanistan. She received a 9x12 in. envelope with a "checkbook" from Prudential Financial Inc., but when she tried to buy a bed and later a camera with the checks, they were rejected for the simple reason that Prudential had not deposited a single cent into a checking account, but was using the entire $400,000 in their general corporate account. So in addition to check fraud, insurance companies such as Prudential and MetLife could well be in violation of a 1933 law that forbids companies from accepting deposits without state or federal authorization. Thus a beneficiary is better off putting his or her money into an FDIC-insured savings account or interest-bearing checking account rather than leaving it in a "retained-asset account."

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

John F. Kennedy held a dinner in the White House for a group of the brightest minds in the nation at that time. He made this statement: "This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

The following quotes are all by the third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson:

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

Thomas Jefferson said in 1802:'I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property - until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.'

Monday, July 26, 2010

It gives great pleasure for this military-friendly blog to mention the name of Stephen Goodman of Surprise, AZ, who is making 180,000 cards to personally thank combat veterans for their service, with help from his grandfather, Manuel Noriega (no, not that Noriega).

Investor's Business Daily describes how the Democrats regard the military budget as an easy target for cuts at a time when sacrifices have to be made across-the-board.

"The New York Times reported last week that thanks in large part to 'big budget deficits,'the Defense Department is under 'intensifying political and economic pressures to restrain its budget, setting up the first serious debate since the terrorist attacks of 2001 about the size and cost of the armed services.' The House and Senate are considering cuts.

"The more things change, the more they stay the same.

"Defense is the only part of the budget Democrats seem to want to cut. And they've supplied themselves with the perfect cover to do so: the all-too-familiar 'bipartisan commission.'"

UPDATE: Pajamas Media has an article about how 17,000 service members were cheated out of the opportunity to have their absentee ballots counted because of government inefficiency.

It's not often I refer to a leftist publication such as the Guardian (U.K.), but they were among the first to break a story that made the release of the Pentagon Papers look like a trickle. According to this article the mass leak consists of, "92,201 internal records of actions by the US military in Afghanistan between January 2004 and December 2009." A U.S. Soldier, Bradley Manning, aka Bradass87, has been arrested in this case.

This flood of documents could well force the United States government to change much of its military and diplomatic policy.

If you are wondering what all the excitement is about, check out Wikileaks.

Sources as different from each other as Slate.com and Rightwing Nuthouse agree that this flood of classified documents should not be compared to the Pentagon Papers, but Rick Moran of Righwing Nuthouse writes, "As for the question of should the documents have been published? Of course not. Anyone who gave that anti-American nutcase Julian Assange - an Australian by birth - access to those documents should be arrested, tried, convicted, and sent to jail for a very long time. Untold damage is being done simply because no one knows what use of this information will be made by the enemy. What intelligence can they glean from its contents? Certainly the Taliban can figure out some of our weaknesses by reading through these documents. For that reason alone, Assange himself should be relentlessly pursued and arrested."

Saturday, July 24, 2010

An AP-Comcast story describes how the city manager of Bell, CA (population 40,000) ended up being paid more than the president of the United States, the police chief had a higher salary than the chief of police of Los Angeles, and how such fiscal irresponsibility dragged the town's finances into the toilet.

Here's a list of 107 journalists, bloggers, and academicians admitted to the elitist (I heard there were no blacks among them) listserv (hat tip: Free Republic). Keith Olberman is noticeably absent; he was too repulsive even for them.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Patriot Post dutifully reports: Barack Obama wants Americans to tighten their belts in these trying times -- and pay more taxes to boot -- but he refuses to lead by example. When the First Family took their recent vacation in Maine, they chose to let their dog Bo fly on a separate jet. No word on how much this lavish expense cost, but don't worry: We taxpayers will be picking up the tab. Granted, due to the small airstrip at their destination, Air Force One was a Gulfstream G3 instead of the usual 747, but surely it wasn't too crowded for the little Portuguese water dog to travel with the president and his kin. Maybe BO just didn't want to smell like Bo when he got off the plane.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Politico.com published a story that had been brewing for some time in Colorado: former Congressman Tom Tancredo is threatening to run as a gubernatorial candidate for the American Constitution Party if Scott McInnis and Dan Maes, the two Republican candidates whom he regards as being fatally flawed, do not drop out of the race.

UPDATE1: There is quite a lot of drama and negative campaigning going on for the hotly contested U.S. Senate seat held by appointed Sen. Michael Bennet, who is fighting off a challenge by former speaker of the state house Andrew Romanoff, who has loyal grassroots support. On the Republican side, Ken Buck (generously backed by "Americans for Job Security") and former lieutenant governor Jane Norton have been clawing at each other for the nomination.

UPDATE2: Not surprisingly, the Colorado Republican Party refuses to let Tancredo force its hand, accordng to a Denver Post article.

UPDATE3: Former Rep. Tancredo's decision to run for governor today [26 July] after both McInnis and Maes refused to step aside is widely regarded as suddenly improving Democratic Mayor Hickenlooper's prospects.

"The Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah, after decades of anti-Israel and anti-U.S. violence, has decided to try something new and open an amusement park. The million-dollar attraction, enticingly named 'Museum for Resistance Tourism,' includes documentary videos, an aerial tramway, and a terrace called 'The Abyss' that showcases remnants of Israeli tanks. Located on the Lebanese mountain town of Mleeta, the museum is meant to cement Hezbollah, which was founded only in the 1980s, into the ancient and storied Lebanese culture. ABC News' Lara Setrakian visits the center that is sometimes called 'HezbollahLand'"...

UPDATE: The Hot Air blog has more juicy info on the JournoList scandal, in which some prominent reporters advocate that the government close down FOX News, oblivious to the probability that such autocratic power can just as easily be directed against them.

Dick Morris in Human Events releases this bombshell: as dean of Harvard Law School, Elena Kagan, who is Jewish, promoted Sharia law! Harvard now has three Saudi-funded institutions devoted to the study and promotion of Sharia law.

Rob Cunningham, an Air Force veteran, writes words to storm the battlements by in American Thinker."As a former USAF Captain, Instructor Pilot, Desert Storm Veteran, Air Medal Recipient with 33 combat missions, Investment Banker and current small business owner, I now find myself a government target. Citizens are being purposefully re-defined, in a highly coordinated and pre-meditated manner, as racist, bitter Tea Party terrorists, religious zealots and "out of the main stream" radicals by liberal politicians and media elites advocating for Socialism.

"Our heinous crime is the voicing of our dissent. The grotesque level of political corruption, illegality, deception and outright political contempt for me and you is a total disgrace...."

Sunday, July 18, 2010

According to this AP-Yahoo.com article, the World Health Organization (WHO) has criticized Amnesty International for describing the North Korean healthcare system as a "shambles," when its director-general, Margaret Chan, visited North Korea in April and declared its healthcare sytem the "envy of most developing nations." It is up to you, the reader, to decide who's right, in light of North Korea's track record for honesty.

Friday, July 16, 2010

It is our sad duty to post the Obama race card on this blog once again, in light of David Limbaugh's article in Newsmax.com, which presents a long list of events that indicate that black racism is every bit as ugly and ignorant as white racism.

"... a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll revealed that fewer and fewer people believe Obama's presidency has advanced racial relations — 4 in 10, compared with 6 in 10 when he was inaugurated."

Liberal Lie #14: The Right Is Violent, the Left Is Civil - Oil Exec's Wife Hurt by Mail Bomb

For over a year-and-a-half now Democrat politicians, their accomplices in the media, and President Obama himself have lamented that the “inflammatory” and “incendiary” rhetoric of the Right can have violent consequences. Right-wing talk radio, the Tea Party movement, and certain outspoken Republican politicians who have the nerve to question President Golden Calf (e.g., Sarah Palin) have all been accused of stoking violence against Obama and Democrat Congress. Janet “Big Sis” Napolitano officially had the Tea Party movement labeled terrorists and extremists!

Yet, those predicted acts of violence from the Right never seem to happen, do they?

But you know who we do get plenty of actual instances of violences from? The Left. The Obama-loving, Democrat-voting, conservative-bashing, capitalism-despising, Republican-fearing Left.

And who does the stoking of this violence? Well, Democrat politicians of course. Consider these gems:

•“I want you to argue with them and get in their face.”

•“I’ll put Mr. Burgess up against Sean Hannity. He’ll tear him up.”

•“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun”

•“My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

•“… so I know whose ass to kick.”

Those incitements to violence, my friends, are from the mouth of the President of the United States. The same guy who is constantly worried that any opposition to his destructive policies is enough to drive someone to anti-Obama violence.

It’s bad enough that liberals/Democrats live in an entirely upside-down Bizarro world. It’s even worse when our own president does.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Obama inherited a big mess, and people are frustrated that he hasn’t fixed the economy. Counseling patience together with a show of resolve and determination helped President Reagan weather the storm in his first midterm election under conditions remarkably similar to today. Unemployment stood at 10.8 percent when voters went to the polls in November 1982, and Reagan’s numbers were 49-47, almost identical to Obama’s (50-47).

One key difference: Obama hasn’t done as good a job as Reagan of blaming his predecessor. Jimmy Carter for years served as the GOP’s version of Herbert Hoover while Obama let George W. Bush slip away into the ether, a former president so invisible that he might as well be in a witness-protection program. Bush’s upcoming book, Decision Points, won’t be released until a week after the November election, reinforcing the GOP’s decision to keep the unpopular president out of the mix in the midterms.

UPDATE: Meanwhille, Z. Byron Wolf of ABC News wonders out loud if the Democrats will become victims of their own success in the upcoming election.

The Daily Mail (U.K.) reports that the management of a shopping center installed two squat toilets in a shopping center restroom at the cost of several thousand pounds, in the sacred name of "cultural awareness." They are sometimes referred to as Turkish toilets or Nile pans, although one can find them in India and the Far East.

Whereas, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded to advance the position of minority groups, and

Whereas a hallmark of the NAACP has been to do the important work of identifying and exposing remaining vestiges of racism and discrimination, and

Whereas the NAACP vocally stands against the discriminatory and harmful practice of labeling people with a broad brush, and

Whereas the NAACP decided to launch their 101st National Convention with a resolution condemning the Tea Party movement and labeling millions of their fellow Americans who subscribe to the movement as “racists”, and

Whereas the “Tea Party movement” is a label applied to patriotic Americans who have expressed their political free speech in the grand tradition of all that is American, that being the spirited expression of viewpoints in a 100% peaceful manner, and

Whereas, it is a hallmark of America that we settle our disputes civilly and avoid the gutter tactic of attempting to silence opponents by inflammatory name-calling, and Whereas the very term “racist” has diminished meaning due to its overuse by political partisans including members of the NAACP, and

Whereas, the NAACP had an opportunity to preserve some semblance of legitimacy by standing up for Ken Gladney, the victim of a vicious racist battery conducted by a black avowed communist, even labeling him an “Uncle Tom”, but chose instead to use the opportunity to mock the St. Louis Tea Party, and

Whereas, the NAACP has refused to denounce the New Black Panther’s call to murder white cops and their babies, and

Whereas, the NAACP does its entire membership a grave disservice by hypocritically engaging in the very conduct it purports to oppose,

Now therefore be it resolved that the St. Louis Tea Party condemns the NAACP for lowering itself to the dishonorable position of a partisan political attack dog organization, and,

Be it further resolved that the St. Louis Tea Party calls on similar organizations to join in unanimous condemnation of this despicable behavior, and

Be it further resolved that we demand that the NAACP withdrawal their bigoted, false and inflammatory resolution against the tea party for any further consideration, and

Be it further resolved that these organizations call on the Internal Revenue Service to evenly apply their standards and consider the tax-exempt status of the NAACP considering the degree to which they are engaging in habitual partisan political behavior.

Adopted unanimously, this day, July 12th, in the year of our Lord, 2010.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

"Real democracies don't do unanimous salutes. Rush Limbaugh has a regular shtick where he plays all the media airheads saying the same words over and over again on any given day. It is astonishing. Losing their audience? Just keep repeating the Party Line. It can't be a coincidence. Real people don't have identical thoughts on the same day, day in and out. It used to be just the Communists who followed the Party Line like little stick figures. Today it's the whole media. 'Mainstream' now means homogenized, lowbrow, ignorant, robotic, group-thinking cheap plastic puppets. America used to have great journalists -- Benjamin Franklin was one, and Mark Twain, and Henry Louis Mencken, all sharp writers and independent thinkers. They would be nauseated by today's media. Today, the only real journalists write for blogs."

Ordinarily we don't pay much attention to professional athletes, but when LeBron James decided to leave Cleveland, where he is now regarded as a traitor, for Miami (which predictably gave him a warm welcome), the NBC station in Miami reported the following bizarre repercussions:

...when one AP writer suggested, without irony, that LeBron write a letter of explanation to the children of Ohio for "stunning" them, it was clear just how far America has fallen down the rabbit hole.

It was only a matter of time until someone blamed LeBron for a DUI -- and if you had Michigan in your office pool, congrats...

Sunday, July 11, 2010

The Hot Air blog reminds us once again of the FCC's latest attempt at a power grab, i.e., trying to regulate the Internet as a "public utility." This is an evil tide that threatens to sink, rather than raise, all boats, and should be opposed by people of every political persuasion.

The Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to take another step toward reclassifying the way it regulates Internet service providers, releasing a plan for public comment that would give the federal agency vast new powers over companies that distribute Web access.

“The FCC has an obligation to move forward with an open, constructive public comment process to ask hard questions, build a record, find a solution and resolve the uncertainty that has been created,” said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

The 3-2 vote comes on the heels of a unanimous April ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that said the FCC had overstepped its authority when the federal agency sanctioned Comcast for slowing some Internet traffic within its networks. The FCC has since made efforts to find new ways to regulate the industry that fall within the confines of the law.

The FCC currently classifies Internet service providers — namely AT&T, Comcast and Verizon — as information services, leaving them largely exempt from regulation. The vote today is the first step toward re-classifying the companies to a new and more restrictive category within the FCC code....

...I addressed the nonsensical idea thrown out there By National Review Online’s Kevin D. Williams: "Make Sarah Palin RNC Chairman, replacing Michael Steele." Now frankly, if he wasn’t such a condescending, uninformed writer, I might have been a little less harsh on the guy. This cat is typical though of the Beltway insider elite.

The way these Beltway insiders think is pretty transparent. They love the fact that she’s out there whipping up the base, who can’t stand them, and see them as the problem, not the solution. They also love that she can raise a lot of money for candidates, as well as pick solid people to endorse. They are also happy that she’s out there doing ALL of the heavy lifting, and taking ALL of the flack, this way they never have to take a firm position on things.

These establishment types are all too happy allowing Sarah Palin to work her butt off, as long as she “knows her place.”

The one part Mr Williams wrote that really sent me over the edge is this:

A Chairman Palin would help set the right tone for the Republican party without having to get herself entangled in the minutiae of policy.

As we pointed out at the time, this is a supreme insult to Sarah. What does Mr Williams think she did as the Chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission? How about as Chairman of the nation’s Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission? For that matter, what does this fellow think she was doing as the Governor of Alaska?...

Friday, July 9, 2010

The United States and Russia carried out a major spy exchange echoing the past era of Cold War espionage Friday when 10 deep-cover Russian agents recently arrested by the FBI were exchanged at an airport in Vienna, Austria, for four people held by Moscow on spy charges.

The spy swap was the largest prisoner transfer of its kind since the 1980s, when U.S. and Soviet bloc spies and agents were traded over Berlin's Glienicke Bridge separating the American sector of West Berlin from communist East Germany....

Thursday, July 8, 2010

1. Chato B. Stewart pokes fun at a common stereotype: because some people with mental illness are dangerous, the public has an all-too-common fear of everyone with a mental disorder.

2. Ever had a senior moment? You don't have to be old to have one, and now Mack Dryden has written a song about it and posted it to YouTube.

3. The Looking Spoon blog has a Top Ten list of reasons Al and Tipper Gore split up. Here's what ended up in the #5 position: "They started to doubt their compatibility after their very first kiss at the 2000 DNC."

The Happy Meals toys are staying, according to a letter McDonald's brass delivered Wednesday to a health watchdog group that criticized the popular kids' meals and how they are marketed.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest last month threatened a lawsuit against the fast-food giant to get it to dump the toys that accompany Happy Meals.

Forget it, McDonald's CEO Jim Skinner said, defending Happy Meals in the written response sent to the Washington, D.C.-based group.

"Internet sites, blogs and network surveys suggest that public opinion is running overwhelmingly against your premise," Skinner wrote. "Our customer websites and phone lines at McDonald's are also busy, with more than nine out of 10 customers disagreeing with your agenda...."

EDITORIAL NOTE: This is known as "calling their bluff," as McDonald's Corp. can spend CSPI under the table if they started litigation proceedings.

A group of eight wounded warriors have returned to the combat zone in Iraq where they were injured, to find a sense of closure.

This second group of “Operation Proper Exit” will spend a week in Iraq, thanks to the Troops First Foundation and the USO. In June, six amputee combat veterans went back to Iraq as part of “Proper Exit” and visited seven military installations.

This week the veterans are also traveling to many of the places where they received injuries, to see firsthand what progress their sacrifices and those of their comrades have brought to Iraq....

Here's an example of the caliber of veteran this program has attracted:

[Ethan] Payton said he understands the need to properly exit the battlefield.

Payton in 2004 was attached to the 1st Cavalry Division in Baghdad when he lost his left arm to a rocketpropelled grenade blast.

After convalescing at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Payton could not get Iraq out of his mind. He spent two summers in Morocco studying Arabic.

In spring 2009, he graduated from Rutgers University with a Bachelor of Arts in Middle Eastern Studies, paid for by the GI Bill and the Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Program. When the call came to be part of the second Operation Proper Exit, he did not hesitate.... Payton is planning a civilian career in the Arab-speaking world, either in North Africa or the Middle East.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

ABC News reports that President Obama appointed Dr. Donald Berwick, as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., called the recess appointment "an insult to the American people. Dr. Berwick is a self-professed supporter of rationing health care and he won't even have to explain his views to the American people in a Congressional hearing. Once again, President Obama has made a mockery of his pledge to be accountable and transparent." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, called him an “expert on rationing.”

Friday, July 2, 2010

According to a Los Angeles Times article, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has put all 200,000 state workers on the federal minimum wage when the legislature fails to turn in the budget on time. A state appeals court has upheld this decision, putting pressure on the legislature to perform one of its essential duties.

The Associated Press reports that a Soldier in Afghanistan is being recommended for the first Congressional Medal of Honor to be awarded to a living person since the Vietnam War - all others were granted to those who laid down their lives for their country. We don't know his name, but in 2007 he saved the lives of half a dozen men by repelling a Taliban attack.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

The Hot Air blog reports a recent survey of American historians (excepting myself), which placed President Obama in 15th place.

In office for barely two years, Obama entered the survey in the 15th position – two spots behind Bill Clinton and three spots ahead of Ronald Reagan. Obama got high marks for intelligence, ability to communicate and imagination, but his score was dragged down by his relative lack of experience and family background…

The scholars rated Dubya a dud as a president, ranking him in the bottom five at 39th place…

Bush got docked for saddling Obama with two bloody wars and a recession, and he got low marks for “ability to compromise, foreign policy accomplishments and intelligence,” according to the survey.

Only Warren G. Harding, who was 41st on the list, scored lower in the intelligence category.

Charles Sakai, aka "Bloodthirsty Warmonger"

Visit to Hawaii, 1988 (Pearl Harbor in background) This is a showcase and forum for my passions. The alias "Doc Adler" appears after each posting to bring attention to my other, psychological blog, "Up and Down Time" I plow through a large volume of news sources so that you don't have to.... We make no apologies for our unabashedly conservative bias, as our readers are looking for an antidote to the liberal bias of larger news outlets. We are almost unique in our commitment to cover not only politics and current events, but also the latest in toilet technology, and in championing the cause of homeless people and the mentally ill. To see my profile on Mormon.org, see http://mormon.org/me/2R75-eng/Charles